The Dashboard

Does anyone else hate it ? It's just cluttered with crap, ad's ad's ad's everywhere. It takes me a while to find the things i want because it's so cluttered. I'm not interested in what they have to offer. Netflix and all that crap the more they shove it in my face the more i hate it.

I think we've been through this topic a million times on this forum, but I like it. The ads are a consequence of having an integrated marketplace into the dash, sign in offline and it's as simple/basic as ever. The "ads" are mostly dashboard content which is advertised in any other way a storefront does, be it Steam or PSN. The true "ads" irrelevant to Xbox and gaming are few but easily ignored.

The dash is quick to use (much quicker than it has been the past few years) and that's more important to me than anything else. I honestly fail to see how anyone can find it difficult to navigate or cluttered, the Tabs make things very streamlined. Moan about it all you like but it's not going to change.

Brand new 360 owner here. So I may still be in that honeymoon period, but I doubt it. Here's my thoughts on the 'new' Dash. Please bear in mind I've had no experience of previous iterations. Oh, and this is an edit from my 'Gaming Journals' or Blog, hence the review like composition...

The Dashboard's abundant variety and stylish Smartglass compliant grid approach provide an enjoyable user experience. Offering a smooth, sweeping series of data screens with colour and features aplenty. A finely tuned integration with the Xbox Live Marketplace makes browsing and buying titles both intuitive and convenient. Much credit also to that simple yet profoundly useful 'Pinning' feature. Internet Favourites, Games, Demos, Films can all be conveniently added to your Homepage with a quick click for later consumption. Impressed!

I hate the boxes/tabs style, I've always felt that sort of thing was ugly & its also a part of why I also dislike the new Playstation store.

Its a big part of why i rarely use the xbox anymore as far as non-Disc games/Marketplace go. I used to spend time looking through the marketplace & always made sure I had MS-points avaliable to buy games or DLC off there. Since the Metro dash came out I've not brought any MS-points & very rarely bother going on the marketplace.

Hate it when you have things plastered all over the screen, I much prefer the XMB dash on the PS3. Its clean, tidy, fast, simple to use & out the way.

It all started to go wrong when they moved from games into "all-in-one" entertainment and needed a new dash to clutter up all the extra menus.

The actual dashboard concept and look and feel of it is great, its just the way they then plug it full of rubbish, advertising and stick everything that used to be fun (friends lists, messages, etc) in hard to reach places. It was only a few weeks ago I was asking for help trying to locate how to change the theme of the dashboard as I searched for 45mins for it and gave up and had to ask on here. It is just so much information and so many areas they have moved into that they are now struggling with making the User Interface a simple and easy to find one.

Maybe one day they will go all retro and decide to bring out a GAMES console again..... and then it will be a nice, powerful, fun, good-looking and LESS COMPLICATED thing! I mean it is brilliant what it can do right now, but how many of you guys actually purchase films, tv shows or music from it? I never have yet...... I get Spotify to do my music, I watch Sky Movies or Cinema for my movie needs and TV Shows are much better coming through a HD Tivo or On Demand than being streamed from some console!

There's always going to be gamer's that dislike the changes MS bring to the Xbox. I, like 2D have been using it for a good few months now and I like it. I never had any problems downloading it and found it quite easy to navigate. 10/10 from me

I don't mind it at all. Assuming I have the right disk in the drive, I can turn on the Xbox, switch over my TV to the right HDMI port, press A, and by the time it comes up on screen I have the game running. I hardly ever see the dashboard.

I don't mind it at all. Assuming I have the right disk in the drive, I can turn on the Xbox, switch over my TV to the right HDMI port, press A, and by the time it comes up on screen I have the game running. I hardly ever see the dashboard.

unfortunately if you use xbla or want to download some dlc you have to use this mess of a dashboard.

honestly its like microsoft have taken everything i hate when it comes to how a UI looks/works & put them all together into 1 big hatefull mess.

i hate the dash, i hate the layout & i especially hate the mess that is the dlc section with random green boxes that text doesn't even fit in all over the damn screen.

i honestly believe the metro layout is the ugliest, messiest, most un-user friendly, cluttered piece of s**t i've ever had the misfortune of having to use.

i can't use my own background images because they get covered by the ugly boxes, i can't quickly scroll through the games/xbla stuff because of the crap boxart bulls**t & trying to navigate through dlc is so bad i've wanted to throw the controller through the tv a couple times while trying to find some specific dlc.

if this had been updated onto a phone, tablet, tv or over similar device i owned i'd have got rid of it by now.
already took back a laptop which came with windows 8 installed because it starts off with a similar ugly metro style ui.

...or want to download some dlc you have to use this mess of a dashboard.

You could set the downloads using the webpage, then they'd automagically start downloading when you're next on your box... You might be lucky and pick something that'll even download whilst you're playing something else...

I like it. Under the icon to play the game in the tray I can pin all the other things I'm likely to use.
Then browsing the marketplace seems simple enough.

The only thing I didn't like, and its mostly my own fault. My 4 month old girl had fallen asleep on me, so before I took her upstairs I thought I'd downloada new demo. Volume of the TV didn't enter my head as I didn't think the quiet noises of scrolling through the menu would be an issue..
Until you move over one of the ads! Scared me to death, never mind my poor little girl!

unfortunately if you use xbla or want to download some dlc you have to use this mess of a dashboard.

honestly its like microsoft have taken everything i hate when it comes to how a UI looks/works & put them all together into 1 big hatefull mess.

i hate the dash, i hate the layout & i especially hate the mess that is the dlc section with random green boxes that text doesn't even fit in all over the damn screen.

i honestly believe the metro layout is the ugliest, messiest, most un-user friendly, cluttered piece of s**t i've ever had the misfortune of having to use.

i can't use my own background images because they get covered by the ugly boxes, i can't quickly scroll through the games/xbla stuff because of the crap boxart bulls**t & trying to navigate through dlc is so bad i've wanted to throw the controller through the tv a couple times while trying to find some specific dlc.

if this had been updated onto a phone, tablet, tv or over similar device i owned i'd have got rid of it by now.
already took back a laptop which came with windows 8 installed because it starts off with a similar ugly metro style ui.

Brand new 360 owner here. So I may still be in that honeymoon period, but I doubt it. Here's my thoughts on the 'new' Dash. Please bear in mind I've had no experience of previous iterations. Oh, and this is an edit from my 'Gaming Journals' or Blog, hence the review like composition...

The Dashboard's abundant variety and stylish Smartglass compliant grid approach provide an enjoyable user experience. Offering a smooth, sweeping series of data screens with colour and features aplenty. A finely tuned integration with the Xbox Live Marketplace makes browsing and buying titles both intuitive and convenient. Much credit also to that simple yet profoundly useful 'Pinning' feature. Internet Favourites, Games, Demos, Films can all be conveniently added to your Homepage with a quick click for later consumption. Impressed!